Who Wants To Be A Smart Guy/Transcript

The complete transcript for Who Wants To Be A Smart Guy

Opening Scene
''{The camera shows a small tower with the Union Jack flag at the top. Red is walking on a path near the base.}''

RED GREEN: This is a monument to a famous battle that took place during the War of 1812, which was also the score: we got 18, they got 12. Every year, dozens of tourists come to visit this monument, and today I'm one of them. And like everybody who travels, you want to go home with a picture of yourself standing in front of the darn thing. Problem with that is, you got to stop some stranger in some place you've never been before and ask him to take your photograph. And before he can even take the picture, you got to train him how to operate a piece of equipment you barely understand yourself. {arrives at a picnic table and sits himself and his camera on it} Then you stand there like a wiener while this dude takes a picture of your feet with his thumb over the lens. {opens a folder} Well, instead, I got Bernice to take a picture of me, {pulls out a cardboard cutout from the folder} waving like a tourist, {turns the cutout around and a closeup of it is shown, revealing a photo of Red waving while holding an oar} and then I just cut the thing out. Ain't that beautiful? Now you just carry this wherever you travel and when you see something you want your picture taken in front of, like, say the Taj Mahal or Frederick's of Hollywood, you just stand yourself up in front of it. Then all you do is just frame it just right.

{From the camera's point of view, it shows Red taking a picture of the Red cutout standing on the picnic table with the tower in the background.}

Intro
''{Red enters the lodge, waving. The audience cheers. He holds a piece of paper in his hand.}''

RED GREEN: Thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate that. {holds up piece of paper, which has some writing on it} I got an invitation here to submit a contestant for a TV show they're shooting up in the Possum Lake area. {looks at paper} It's one of those game shows, Who Wants To Be a Smart Guy. And that's one of those trivia deals where they take something that you don't care about, and they try to attract your interest by adding cash prizes. Kinda like the way they used dowries for ugly women.

''{Dalton and Mike enter the lodge. Dalton holds a piece of paper in his hand.}''

DALTON HUMPHREY: Red, we gotta pick somebody to send to this TV game show thingy.

RED GREEN: Yeah, alright. {tries to think} Well, whose head has the most useless information in it?

MIKE HAMAR: Boy, that's a tossup.

DALTON HUMPHREY: Yeah, I know. {looks at his paper} That's why I made up this practice sheet. It's kind of a test test, okay? {looks at paper} How deep is the deepest part of the ocean? {looks at Mike} Mike?

MIKE HAMAR: Um, 12,000 miles.

DALTON HUMPHREY: You're high.

MIKE HAMAR: No, I'm just nervous.

DALTON HUMPHREY: Red, you wanna try another one?

RED GREEN: No, I don't wanna try another one.

DALTON HUMPHREY: Wrong answer. {looks at paper again while Red looks annoyed} What has four legs, two–

RED GREEN: {interrupting} No, no, no, no, I'm gonna ask you one: what's five foot eight and hates trivia games?

MIKE HAMAR: An idiot. {giggles}

DALTON HUMPHREY: {ecstatic} Absolutely right!

{Mike laughs while Red waves dismissively and heads for the door.}

The Possum Lodge Word Game
ED FRID: It's time to play the Possum Lodge Word Game!

''{The camera pulls back to reveal Ed standing behind the card table where Red and Brian Jacobs are seated. Ed takes out a pocket watch from under the table.}''

ED FRID: Today's prize is a pocket watch, for people who find that wearing a watch on your wrist is just too darn convenient. {picks up word sign} Red, you've got thirty seconds to get local funeral director Brian Jacobs to say this word...

''{Ed turns the word sign around. It displays on it the word "Immortal".}''

ED FRID: Immortal. Immortal! {puts the word sign down} Okay, and go!

RED GREEN: Alright, Brian, you know a lot about funerals and so on. What do you call a person that never dies?

BRIAN JACOBS: Bad for business.

RED GREEN: No, no. What do Peter Pan and Dracula have in common?

BRIAN JACOBS: They suck.

RED GREEN: Okay, if a guy lives forever, he would be...

BRIAN JACOBS: ...very wrinkly.

RED GREEN: {snaps fingers} Okay, okay. You know, when people get older, they start thinking about this a lot.

BRIAN JACOBS: Viagra?

ED FRID: You're almost out of time, Red.

RED GREEN: Uh, okay. Okay, Brian, what do you call someone who just keeps coming back year after year forever?

BRIAN JACOBS: Uh, Alan Thicke.

RED GREEN: No, that's not what I was going at.

BRIAN JACOBS: He's everywhere on reruns of Growing Pains. They've immortalized him on that show.

RED GREEN: There you go! {rings the bell rapidly while Ed hands the pocket watch to Brian}

Rothschild's Sewage and Septic Sucking Services
{Winston walks along past his truck and up to a wooden shed while carrying a green book.}}

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: You know, throughout human history, some of the world's greatest discoveries were made in the smallest room in the house. Archimedes discovered water displacement while sitting in the tub, and that's where Newton found out about gravity, and it's also where Da Vinci got the idea for the look on Mona Lisa's face. {stops next to a wooden outhouse and points at it} It all happened here, in the restroom. It's a sea of calm in a tempestuous world. That's why Rothschild's Sewage and Septic Sucking Services is pleased to announce the launch of our very own... (shows off several books on a shelf attached to the outhouse} "Bathroom Classics of Literature". Order now and you'll receive...

{As Winston says the title and author of each book he mentions, the title and author appear on the screen, with the title in yellow italic text and the author in white text.}

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: William Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence, Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind, Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.

{Yellow italic text reading "Shakespeare Collection" then appears on-screen.}

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: Our Shakespeare Collection includes...

{The titles of William Shakespeare plays appear on-screen in yellow italic text as Winston says the name of each.}

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest and Much Ado About Nothing. It's my gift to you. I hope you enjoy.

''{The scene then cuts to a black screen on which yellow messages scroll from bottom to top at a hyper-fast speed over and over again while a man reads parts of it. For the purpose of this transcript and to avoid confusion, the script is provided by way of an "Adventures" setup:}''

{Cut back to Winston, now reading the green book in front of the outhouse.}

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: That's the "Bathroom Classics of Literature" series from Rothschild's Sewage and Septic Sucking Services. {tears half a page off} Available while supplies last.

{Winston tosses the book onto the ground while entering the outhouse holding the torn-off half-page.}

Handyman Corner
''{Red walks up to a plain white van parked near some trees outside the lodge. He holds a magazine in his hand.}''

RED GREEN: You know, it can be really rough on a guy to be looking through a car magazine at all the fancy new sports cars and concept cars and then have to go back to his old van. {holds up index finger} But I have a solution for that. {walks up to a worktable covered in rolls of duct tape} It's all about how your vehicle looks, not how it performs. {waves dismissively} All that extra horsepower and fancy suspension of a sports car are just wasted in today's traffic principles, eh? So instead of spending money you don't have on the features you won't use, why not just repaint your van and make it look sportier? {picks up a Black Magic Marker and walks over to the van} Now, I'm not just talking about a fresh paint job. Oh, no, I'm way past that. You ever seen those rooms where they paint the fake windows on the walls? It's called, uh, "trompe l'oeil" {pronounces it "tromp loyal}. Yeah, it's French. It means "trick the eye". We're gonna do a trompe l'oeil 10W-30. {examines magazine and taps it with marker} What you wanna do is, uh, pick out a concept car from your magazine, then you want to draw the shape of that on your van. {opens marker} I would say get something from France or Sweden or somewhere far away so they can't sue you.

''{Red then uses the marker to draw a squiggly line along the side of the van. He then stops and tries to rub some of the ink off as though he had made a mistake. Wipe to a later scene. Red has now drawn the shape of a sports car on the van.}''

RED GREEN: Now, it doesn't matter if you don't get both sides exactly the same on there. Nobody's gonna ever see both sides of your vehicle at the same time, unless there's been a really bad accident. Okay, now, everything inside these lines, that's your fancy new sports car. Everything outside the lines, you want that to kinda fade into the background, eh? {walks to some cans of spray paint lying on a blue oil drum} So we gotta paint that to look like trees or sky or whatever. {picks up and starts shaking one spray paint can} And we're gonna make it kinda blurry, so it looks like we're going a hundred miles an hour!

''{Red walks up to the van with the can of spray paint in his hand and starts spraying a green streak on it. He stops several times to examine, as though making sure he is doing it right. Wipe to a later scene. Red stands behind the van, which is now painted to look like a sports car driving through the countryside. The car is painted with the trees lined up beside it. The back doors of the van have been completely covered over with duct tape. The taillights have been lined with empty potato chip bags.}''

RED GREEN: Okay, once I got my blurry background done, now I gotta fill in the shape of the sports car itself. And with that, you can use paint, I guess, or plaster or tar. {holds up a roll of duct tape} I decided to go with the handyman's secret weapon, duct tape. It's easy to apply and it helps hold the van together. {shows off potato chip bag lining a taillight} And if you take an old potato chip bag, eh, turn 'em inside out, {smiles} it looks just like chrome and will never rust! {walks up to driver's seat door} And that's how you turn your ugly old van into a beautiful, sleek, European sports car.

''{Red opens the door and gets in, closing the door as he does so. He starts up the van and slowly drives it away, looking out the window as he does. As it drives away, it shows that the back doors have paintings of a man and woman seated up front.}''

Red's Sage Advice
RED GREEN: When you're married, like a lot of us are, you notice that wives make lists: grocery lists, Christmas card lists, people who owe us a party, people we owe a party to, people who will never be invited to darken our doorway again. Or as she also refers to them, your friends. But the scary list is the one she has for you. You know what I'm talking about. That list of odd jobs for you to do around the house. Now, it's called a list, but it doesn't actually exist on paper. She's way too smart for that. She keeps that list in her head. That way, she can add to it without you noticing. And you, sir, will never be finished. You know what? That's a good thing. Speaking on behalf of all men, we're not at our best when we have nothing to do. Your wife knows that. That's why she makes this list. So let's be honest: we're better off married and busy than single and listless. Remember, I'm pulling for you. We're all in this together.

Plot Segment 2
{Red stands in the lodge.}

RED GREEN: {wringing his hands together} Well, Dalton's been going all over town, trying to find somebody smart enough to represent us for that TV game show thing. So far, no luck. See, around here, none of us know anything. That's why we get along so well.

{Suddenly, the front door opens and Mike and Dalton enter, dragging a shopping cart full of books.}

MIKE HAMAR: Hey, Mr. Green! We found our contestant!

DALTON HUMPHREY: Well, y'know, actually Mike found him.

MIKE HAAMAR: It was so obvious! Who has more information than anybody else in the whole Possum Lake area?

RED GREEN: I would say the receptionist at the proctology clinic.

MIKE HAMAR: No. Dalton!

RED GREEN: {surprised} Dalton?!

DALTON HUMPHREY: I was shocked, Red!

RED GREEN: You should be shocked, Dalton!

MIKE HAMAR: See, Dalton knows all this information, 'cause he's been running his store all these years. {holds up index finger} Plus, he often goes to libraries and reads boring books, 'cause he wants to avoid going home.

DALTON HUMPHREY: {ecstatic} Yeah, and they're free! {laughs}

RED GREEN: You go up to the library in Port Asbestos?

DALTON HUMPHREY: No, no, there's a library here in town.

RED GREEN: There's a library here in town?

DALTON HUMPHREY: Right next to the florist shop.

RED GREEN: There's a florist shop?

MIKE HAMAR: So anyway, Dalton's gonna go on the TV show, representing our area, {raises index finger again} and if he gets a question he can't answer, he's allowed to phone a friend.

RED GREEN: This must be a friend I haven't met.

DALTON HUMPHREY: No, no, Red, that's what all these books are for. I'm going to phone the lodge, right, and you guys will all be here with every volume of the encyclopedia spread out in front of you, {excitedly} and then you just look up anything I need!

MIKE HAMAR: {also excited} We are gonna win a lot of money! {he and Dalton giggle}

RED GREEN: {somewhat not convinced} Oh, sure, sure.

DALTON HUMPHREY: I gotta go. You divvy up the books, Mike. {turns and leaves}

MIKE HAMAR: Okay. {clears throat, takes out two books from shopping cart and hands one to Red} Here you go.

RED GREEN: {taking book} Alright.

MIKE HAMAR: {looking at his own book} Oh, look at this! I got volume 16: "Time To Win". What have you got?

RED GREEN: {looking at his book} Volume 7: "Going To Lose".

Segue: Winston Rothschild
WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: Hi, Winston Rothschild here of Rothschild's Sewage and Septic Sucking Services with a lesson for you. There once was a young man from Turkey, whose septics were plugged up and murky. They blamed it on lead, from the pipes in the bed, when the culprit was too much beef jerky.

{Winston holds up his business card.}

Buddy System
{Dalton and Winston run down into the basement and walk up close to the camera.}

DALTON HUMPHREY: You're strapping on competition water-skis, you're sitting on the dock, staring down 75 feet of snarled line at a 200-horsepower water-ski boat.

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: Where your deranged brother-in-law is sitting at the wheel, goosing the throttle!

DALTON HUMPHREY: {shakes head} You shouldn't– {holds up index finger} You shouldn't be within a hundred miles of that dock, behind that boat, with that lunatic driving!

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: You're out of shape, you're out of excuses...

DALTON HUMPHREY: You're out of your mind.

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: Yeah, but you're way too proud to chicken out. I'll tell you what, though: if you don't think of something real fast, you, my friend, are fish food!

DALTON HUMPHREY: It's just hard to believe that all this started with one beer. {both nod, then Dalton shakes head}

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: But you know something? The kids were saying you just gotta go for it, and your mouthy brother-in-law was making wisecracks about body fat percentages.

DALTON HUMPHREY: You just felt you had to go for it and show that you had the moves of a twenty-year-old.

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: And now, you're going to die!

DALTON HUMPHREY: You can bail without humiliating yourself!

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: This is where 25 years of marriage is gonna save your bacon!

DALTON HUMPHREY: Yeah, you call the wife over, you give her a kiss, you look her straight in the eye, and you say, "Honey, I love you."

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: Then you add, "I only wish I had enough life insurance to provide for you and the children."

DALTON HUMPHREY: {chuckles, then holds up index finger} Then you look real brave, like you're really gonna go for it.

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: {eagerly} If she's any kind of woman, and you know she is, {Dalton giggles} she'll have you out of those water-skis before your bathing suit gets wet. From the outside or the inside!

DALTON HUMPHREY: Yeah, and you're brother-in-law is not gonna argue with your wife.

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: Oh, especially if he's married to her sister.

DALTON HUMPHREY: Yeah! Just remember not to look relieved, and your secret is safe.

WINSTON ROTHSCHILD: No need to thank us.

DALTON HUMPHREY: That's what friends are for.

{They turn and go back upstairs.}